I find it interesting that when it comes to understanding spiritual matters, the Lord does not always require us to just believe. While having faith is key to understanding the Lord and His purposes, faith is not the only means by which we can learn of his ways. Consider the following account recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants, section 67. The occasion was a priesthood gathering in Ohio where the brethren were discussing what to do with the written revelations received through Joseph Smith. It was decided at that meeting that the written revelations should be published. I imagine that the written records were laid out on a table before them as they discussed what should be done. Some of the brethren testified that the records were true and that they had received this witness through the power of the Holy Ghost. Others, however, debating the language contained in some of the revelations. They thought that if this or that statement had truly come from God, it would have been worded differently. Perhaps these individuals wanted to “wordsmith” some of the text so that it agreed with what they think the Lord might have said. Or maybe they wanted to strike some text from the records thinking that it came from the prophet's own thoughts. I can imagine the prophet sitting there dumbfounded by the skepticism that had crept into their meeting. He might have testified to the skeptics that the revelations came directly from the Lord. What is certain is that during the meeting, the voice of the Lord came to those men through the prophet and testified that the revelations were genuine. But the Lord did not just command them to believe, He reasoned with them. In verse 6 the Lord challenges the men to find the least (simplest) revelation contained in the manuscript. Then He tells them to pick the wisest (most learned) person from among them. If that wise person can create a revelation “like unto” the least revelation, then they “are justified in saying that ye do not know that they are true.” But if the wisest person cannot create a similar revelation, then they can know that the revelations came “down from above, from the Father.” I don’t think that any of the brethren actually carried out this experiment. More than likely it was meant to be a thought experiment, or a gedanken experiment, as it is sometimes called. A thought experiment is an experiment that is carried out in one's mind. The Lord gave them a thought experiment knowing that it can be a very powerful source of truth. When the brethren imagined the outcome of the Lord’s experiment, they knew in their minds what the outcome would be.

(Interestingly most of Einstein’s discoveries came through thought experiments. Only recently has science carried out actual experiments [here and here] that confirm Einstein’s ideas.) Human reason, when exercised correctly, has the power to convince people of spiritual truths. Everyday our missionaries open the scriptures and reason with people around the world. They reason with people about the existence of God and the reality of the Restoration. Those who accept the missionaries’ reasoning, humble themselves and pray for an answer, receive a witness through the Holy Spirit. Human reason leads not just to secular truth, but spiritual truth as well. When we ponder things in the spirit of righteousness, the Spirit guides our thinking and leads us to knowledge.

When I taught Research Methods at BYU we’d discuss Stanley Milgram’s (in)famous blind obedience to authority experiments. In those experiments Milgram showed that average Americans were willing to deliver lethal shock to strangers in the name of science. You can view snippets of Milgram’s study here (starting at 1:35 really). Discussion on the ethical implications of Milgram’s experiments start at 6:45. You can view a modern replication of the experiment here where people just like you and me deliver lethal shock to nice people. Note that the people are British. I don’t think that a similar study would receive IRB approval in America. Also, because the study would probably not work if participants had already heard of Milgram’s study, is the UK the only place where they could find people who had never heard of Milgram’s experiments?Anyway, 60-65% went on to deliver lethal shock in Milgram’s experiment. Do you think we are more enlightened today? Well in the modern-day replication of Milgram’s study, 75% of people went on to deliver lethal shock. Milgram’s experiments are often mentioned as a classical example of what not to do in a study. It is the whipping boy of unethical studies. The people delivering the shocks in Milgram’s original experiment experienced great discomfort as they were pressured to deliver increasingly levels of shock. Some people delivering shocks even convulsed. Usually my students agree that the study was unethical. They didn’t like how Milgram coerced people to harm others. They did not like how Milgram did not warn people of the potential for emotional and physical discomfort. And they did not like how Milgram continued to replicate the study after witnessing the discomfort people experienced in the first trail. However, I would raise two thought-provoking questions that made my students question their conclusions. First, is it fair to judge Milgram’s study by today’s more rigorous and enlightened standards on what constitutes and ethical study? Milgram appears to have satisfied all the criteria necessary for carrying out an ethical study that existed back then. Second, would our ethical criticism of Milgram’s study be different if he found out that most people refused to deliver harmful levels of shock? Put another way, if average Americans refused to deliver high levels of shock to complete strangers, would we even be having this discussion? Probably not. Milgram’s study suggests that most of us will harm innocent people in the name of authority. This is not a comforting thought. We don’t like to think of ourselves as possibly no different than the Nazi thugs who slaughtered Jews during WWII. What Milgram’s findings suggest to me is that it is important for people to be sensitive to the whisperings of the Spirit of the Lord. The Spirit of the Lord, or Light of Christ as Latter-day Saints sometimes call it, is given to all people when they come into this world. It is our God-given conscience that enables us to determine right from wrong in ambiguous situations. But the Spirit of the Lord alone is not enough to stop people from harming others. We must also have the courage to stand up for our convictions, to stand up for what we *feel* is right. In all the videos where people expressed concern about harming the other person but went on anyway, courage to take a stand seems to be what’s missing. For all of us, finding the courage to refuse is not an easy thing, especially when an authority figure demands that we go on.

From my study of the scriptures, teachings of the prophets, and the temple endowment, it is fairly clear that the physical universe has always existed, that is it eternal. Into this scene of a physical universe came our God. He has omnipotent powers that enable Him to organize matter into a habitable world upon which His spirit children (us) can take physical bodies and grow to be more like Him. He has repeated the process of forming habitable worlds and putting children on them for a very long time, even to the point at which his created worlds number more than the sands on a beach. How did our physical existence on this world come to pass? The obvious answer is that it and we were created by God. But where did our creator come from and how did He become all powerful? If we say that He came from an omnipotent creator then that leads to a seemingly infinite regress of creators which seems incredible. On the other hand, if there was a first god then how did he come into existence and how did he become omnipotent? Here are the 2 scenarios. 1. Imagining a first creator who suddenly came into existence with a magical *poof* – unfathomable. 2. Imagining that there has always been a creator(s) – unfathomable. The unfathomability of it all is what keeps some atheists reclining in their thinking chairs, letting out devious, hoary laughs while puffing on cigars. Anyway, their brashness means nothing to me because I believe in God. One of the 2 scenarios above must be true or else we would not be here. It turns out that #2 is correct, but I still don’t get it. My mortal mind cannot grasp the concept of no beginning. Each time I hopelessly reflect on how I and this world can be, I feel like Thales of Miletus (circa 600 BC) who, while out for an evening stroll, fell into a well as he looked up pondering the infinitude of the heavens. The impossibility of it all just adds to my fascination with the power of God. He is an omnipotent and omniscient creator of worlds without number, yet the worlds are numbered to Him. Moreover He is personally aware and interested in the state of every child that has been placed on one of those worlds. D&C 88:47 says “Behold, all these are kingdoms, and any man who hath seen any or the least of these hath seen God moving in his majesty and power.” Sticking to beholding and marveling is sound counsel. If we try too hard to understand the ins and outs of our existence we may end up stepping into a well like poor Thales.

With the big budget movie Noah making the rounds in theaters, I thought a post on the Flood would be appropriate. What is the best evidence for a flood? The best physical evidence for the Flood is not something like a heap of gopher wood on Mount Ararat or sedimentary deposits. The best physical evidence is historical accounts of a worldwide deluge. According to one source, there are over 500 deluge legends around the world. There is one deluge legend that comes surprisingly close to matching details in the Bible. When I first read this account I was surprised by some of its accuracies. In some places it reads very similar to the Noah account, closer than all other accounts, I believe. There is a good explanation for why this particular flood story closely resembles the story in the Bible. This account comes from a civilization that was once righteous, had the rights to the priesthood, learned the mysteries of heaven through revelation, and was the civilization from which the Hebrew people came. The civilization is Sumeria. The ancient Jewish historian Josephus wrote that, after the Flood, the people of Shem (one of Noah’s sons) moved into Mesopotamia. Josephus says that these people were called Arphaxadites. They were Abraham’s ancestors. We know from the Pearl of Great Price that they were a righteous people, held the rights of the priesthood, and were highly favored of the Lord before falling into apostasy. The Sumerian flood story was likely handed down from one generation to another while the apostasy was in full force. Without the benefit of prophets and scriptures, the story was altered through the years, but retained a surprising amount of similarity to the Biblical account. The Sumerian flood story comes from the story of Gilgamesh, inscribed on clay tablets discovered in modern Iraq. The writer of the clay tablets tells us that Gilgamesh was a wise king who saw mysteries, knew secret things, and told his people tales of life before the Flood. Gilgamesh learned of the pre-deluge days from a man named Utnapishtim (Noah). Utnapishtim/Noah told Gilgamesh about a time before the Flood when the gods dwelt on earth, including Anu (the Father), Lord of the heavens, and Enlil (the Son) who enforced divine decisions. “In those days the world teemed, the people multiplied, the world bellowed like a wild bull, and the great god [Anu] was aroused by the clamour. Enlil heard the clamour and he said to the gods in council, ‘The uproar of mankind is intolerable….’ So the gods agreed to exterminate mankind.” Utnapishtim/Noah was instructed to…“Tear down your house and build a boat, abandon possessions and look for life, despise worldly goods and save your soul…. [B]uild a boat with her dimensions in proportion – her width and length in harmony. Put aboard the seed of all living things, into the boat.” Then the story continues:“[T]he wind blew, torrent and tempest and flood overwhelmed the world, tempest and flood raged together like warring hosts . When the seventh day dawned the storm from the south subsided, the sea grew calm, the flood was stilled…. All mankind had returned to clay. I opened a hatch and light fell on my face. Then I bowed low, I sat down and I wept, the tears streamed down my face, for on every side was the waste of water.... When the seventh day dawned I loosed a dove and let her go. She flew away, but finding no resting place she returned…. [Then] I loosed a raven, she saw that the waters had retreated, she ate, flew around, she cawed, and she did not come back.” Wow! That degree of similarity between a 4000 plus-year-old Sumerian story and the Bible is remarkable. Here is good evidence for the Flood. To be sure, there are many differences between the Sumerian account and the Bible. No flood story perfectly matches the Bible, but based on what I’ve heard from movie critics, Gilgamesh’s story may be more accurate than the movie itself! Kudos to Gilgamesh, whoever and wherever you are ;)

A while back my friend Brad was searching for online reviews of my book, Truth and Science. “You won’t find any, other than a couple reviews on the Goodreads website,” I said. One of the Goodreads reviewers correctly rated my book 4 out of 5 stars, an accurate rating for people with a passing interest in Mormonism and science. Why not 5 stars? The publisher messed up the aesthetics of the book with small font and a very small bottom margin. Oh well, I have to blame someone else to protect my ego, right? “Wait!” my friend said as he stared into his computer screen. “I found another rating.” It was a rating of 1 out of 5 stars at another website I’ve long since forgotten, or tried to forget. “What? You can’t be serious,” I said as I moved in for a closer look. “It must be a review by a rabid atheist.” It turns out the basement rating of my book came from a distinguished BYU professor! Aren’t we supposed to be on the same team? A basement book review usually means one of two things. Either the words it contains are not worth the paper they are printed on, or the reviewer is expressing, in a childish sort of way, disagreement with something the author said, without seeing the broader value of the book. My thinking is that this BYU professor gave a low rating because he was offended by something I wrote. He disagreed with one or two things and assumed that the rest of the book was junk. Searching for an Answer I wanted to know why he gave my book such a low rating. My friend Brad sent him an email. The professor replied. He wrote that Truth and Science (T&S) has too many “ibids” in the sources suggesting that I did not do a good job of integrating ideas from different books. You’ve got to be kidding, right? He also responded that T&S supports a conflict scenario between religion and science because it points out differences between the two. Hm? Even if he were right about these two criticisms, and he is not, they do not justify giving T&S a basement rating. Gee, I hope he’s not this tough on his students. His reasons for giving my book a basement rating had me searching for answers. Perhaps my blog post “Course Correction Needed for the BYU Biology Department” lingers in his mind. That blog post probably ruffled the feathers of more than a couple of BYU Biology professors. Or perhaps he disagreed with my brief statement in T&S about macroevolution, the one where I characterized evolutionary common descent as a deception. How could I ever know? Well this guy recently wrote a book about science and religion for the LDS Setting the Record Straight series. I read his book and found the answer to my question. The Problem In his book, Mormons and Science: Setting the Record Straight, the professor correctly claims that that true science and true religion always agree. I made the same claim in my book. But then he gets off the rails when, on page 4, he states that it is easy to balance scientific theories with LDS theology. He proceeds to support this position by discussing how scientific facts are indisputable and must agree with our theology. While he is right about necessary agreement between facts and theology, he is wrong to conflate basic scientific facts with scientific theory. Facts are indisputable, theories are not. Theories are attempts to explain scientific facts within a coherent framework. Theories are subject to correction and refutation; facts are not. It is risky to claim that scientific theories are in complete agreement with LDS theology because scientific theories change and are sometimes refuted. In my book T&S, I point out some areas where scientific theory and LDS disagree (and point out several areas where they agree and where the gospel can be used to progress science, I might add). Why is this professor so put off by writing contrasting science and religion? I’ve heard the same criticism from someone else in the BYU Biology Department. I think I know why. Some BYU Biology Department faculty are concerned that pointing out differences between scientific theory and religion will create a faith crisis in their students – a situation where students are faced with having to choose between the gospel and science. To avoid this sort of crisis in their students they push the “faith and science can be completely compatible” agenda, even to the point of claiming things like the theory of common descent is completely compatible with the gospel.The Main Point BYU Biology faculty can choose to believe that Adam and Eve’s immortal bodies evolved from lower life forms if they want, but they are incorrect to assume that impressionable LDS students need to be sheltered from scientific and religious conflicts. Nay! Exploring differences and similarities between science and religion enriches the educational experience. What a great way to promote learning and discovery – to use, when possible, fundamental truths in the gospel as a metric to personally judge the accuracy of scientific theories! This sort of pursuit captures the BYU spirit of teaching secular principles within the light of the gospel. Understanding science within the light of the gospel is what my book Truth and Science attempts to do. To concerned faculty of the BYU Biology Department I say that there is no harm in exploring differences as long as one recognizes that the basic tenets of the gospel are perfect, and that the theories of science are not. Faith crises are only possible when people make the mistake of thinking that scientific theories contain absolute truths with which gospel truths must agree.

It seems that people are fascinated with the Dead Sea Scrolls. Unfortunately, other than the literary evidence from the scrolls and the ruins where they used to live, we don't know much more about these people. In a way it would be cool if we uncovered some mummified remains of the writers, then we could say, "Look! These people were Jewish Essenes."

Something like this recently happened. Not long ago archaeologists discovered a mummified woman near the Nile river. The mummy dates back to approximately 700 AD. Here she is.

You cannot tell by looking at her, but she was certainly a Christian. While running a CT scan of her thigh bone researchers discovered a faint tattoo. Infrared imagery allowed them to capture the image. Here is what it looks like:

British researchers who studied the tattoo recognized it from similar symbols on ancient Christian artifacts and mosaics. The symbol represents Michael the Archangel. The Greek letters spelling "Michael" are stacked on top of each other. The Greek letters are M * I * X * A * H * A.

There is something weird about this map. Which one of the following is unusual? 1. It was made by a Frenchman 2. It looks like it was drawn a long time ago 3. The positioning of the African and South American continents is surprisingly accurate 4. The map contains fairly accurate descriptions of Antarctic shores, mountain ranges, rivers, bays, and relative size 5. The map bears a striking resemblance to modern maps of the Antarctic All five points are true, although admittedly, the fact that is was created by a Frenchman is probably not unusual. The other 4 facts are astounding considering the following: A. The map was drawn by Oronteus Finaeus in 1531 AD, long before the Antarctic had been discovered. B. The longitudinal estimates for Africa and South America are accurate, yet a chronometer for accurately measuring longitudinal coordinates was not invented until 1720. C. The topography of the Antarctic is surprisingly accurate, yet the continent has been covered in snow and ice for thousands of years. D. Modern technology allowing us to peer through the thick ice and discover the underlying structure of the Antarctic was not invented until the 20th century. Scholars agree that the map’s accuracy cannot be due to chance. If the map’s accuracy was not due to chance, how did it come to pass? The best answer that I know of is that Oronteus Finaeus, and a few other 16th century cartographers who drew maps of the southern continent, relied on ancient cartography. If this is true, the maps would have have been copied from maps drawn by ancient civilizations with advanced skills in estimating longitude, and with access to the Antarctic continent before it became covered in ice. The above 1531 map was uncovered in 1960 by Charles Hapgood. He found the map in the US Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Charles surmised that the Antarctic could have remained ice-free as early as 4000 BC when the entire continent might have been located at least 2000 miles farther north in the temperate zone. He argued that a civilization existing 6000 years ago could have drawn up accurate maps that were later used by 16th century cartographers. Well, now. I can think of an enlightened civilization that existed approximately 6000 years ago at a time when the land masses were combined. That would be the pre-deluge, Adamite people who received light and knowledge from the Lord (before falling into apostasy). According to scripture, they lived on a single land mass called Pangea. Barring the discovery of a space-travelling, earth-mapping, jelly donut eating, advanced Martian civilization that secretly put maps into Europe during the 16th century, I am going with Adamite civilizations.

Since I was a young seminary student, I always wondered why the Lord forbade Adam and Eve from taking the fruit when eating the fruit was supposed to happen. Sure there was the explanation of eating the fruit being a transgression and not a sin, but this did not erase my confusion. How can something be a transgression if it is supposed to happen? Once and a while I would bring up this issue in church classes. I got a couple of decent explanations, but nothing that definitively put the issue to rest. That all changed last Sunday in gospel doctrine class. During our classroom discussion on the Fall, someone raised her hand and asked the ubiquitous question: Why were Adam and Eve forbidden to eat the fruit if it was supposed to happen? The teacher dutifully pointed out that it was not a sin, but a transgression. Yet like so many times before, my mild confusion persisted and I consigned myself to the fact that I will never know the answer in this life. Then something significant happened. The teacher went on to explain President Brigham Young’s teaching on the earth moving away from the presence of God after the Fall. I knew about this teaching, but when she said it, a thought came to my mind. The thought was this: The Lord forbade Adam and Eve from taking the fruit because mortal beings cannot exist in His presence. In other words, when Adam and Eve ate the fruit, it started the process of transforming their bodies into a mortal state and mortal beings are forbidden from being in the Lord’s presence. Thus forbidden refers more to the consequences of eating the fruit than to the act itself. For Adam and Eve to be in that heavenly sphere whilst being mortal was a transgression. Hence the earth was sent to a lower, telestial sphere appropriate for mortal beings. It might help to think of it this way. Adam did not transgress a moral directive from the Lord. He transgressed a law of Heaven which states that mortal beings cannot be in His presence. This concept is consistent with the teaching that mortals who see God must undergo a physical change to withstand His presence. Such was the case with Moses and Joseph Smith. I am grateful that I finally have my answer to this question.

A few months ago my youngest sister of 35 years suffered a massive heart attack that eventually took her life. The heart attack was caused by a blood clot that formed in her foot from surgery a week earlier. She had foot surgery to repair damage caused by a car accident. Someone made an illegal turn and crashed into her car while she was driving home from work as a paramedic. She was on life support for a few days after the heart attack. Two of my brothers who are docs were with her in the hospital. They called me with the bad news. Scans revealed that her brain had swollen and damaged the regions of the brain stem that control basic functions like breathing and heartbeat. The next day she was declared brain dead. One of my brothers said that looking at her on life support you would never guess that she was brain dead. She looked like she was sleeping. Life support created the illusion of being alive. The decision was made to take her off life support and harvest her organs. Because she was an organ donor, two people came off kidney dialysis, someone’s life was saved with a liver transplant, and several individuals with advanced diabetes received islet cells. Organ donation made something good out of a tragic situation. Recently in the news we’ve heard about the tragic circumstances surrounding a young girl who went in for tonsil surgery and ended up brain dead. The family refuses to accept that she is dead. In their minds she is not dead until her heart stops beating. Medical professionals say that she only looks alive because of life support and that her body cannot function without it. Professionals also said that her condition will gradually deteriorate and her body will eventually shut down. I imagine that when that happens, the family will be content that she is gone. I respect the family’s right to do what they think is best for their daughter, but I can’t help think about the cost of keeping her on life support until her body shuts down. What about the medical costs? It must be expensive. Who is paying for it? And what about the missed opportunity to harvest organs so that other children can have improved quality of life? Is continuing life support on a brain dead person whose body will eventually shut down shortsightedness? I will leave that answer to others. These issue boils down to this: When is someone truly dead? For most believers it’s when the spirit leaves the body, but when does that happen for a person on life support? I don’t think anyone really knows. When my sister was on life support I asked my dad if he thought her spirit was still with her body. He thought so, but wasn’t sure. I think my sister’s spirit could have left after her heart attack, or after her brain damage, or after she was taken off life support. It is interesting that questions of when life begins and when life ends have arisen because of advancements in medical technology. Blessings in science and technology force us to grapple with challenging ethical and spiritual issues that were unheard of 50 years ago.

How many times have you read claims like “Being exposed to X increases your risk of getting disease A by 75%? Or “Taking supplement Y cuts your risk of getting a disease B in half?” Such statements can be misleading. Determining the importance of such statements requires information on prevalence rates. Here’s some examples.

In 1995, Britain’s National Committee on Safety of Medicines issued the following warning to women taking contraceptives: Rigorous studies have found that women taking 3rd generation contraceptives (contraceptives made after 1990) experienced a twofold (100%) increase in blood clots compared to a similar cohort of women who took 2nd generation (pre 1990s) contraceptives. In other words, newer contraceptives are doubling a woman’s risk of blood clots compared to older contraceptives.

It sounds like young women should avoid 3rd generation contraceptives because of the increased risk of blood clots. Well it depends on the prevalence of blood clots.

Contraceptive studies found that one out of every 7,000 women who took the 2nd generation pills had blood clots. This number doubled with 3rd generation pills where two out of every 7,000 women who took 3rd generation pills had blood clots. Is a 100% increase from 1 to 2 blood clots in a sample of 7,000 women something to get deeply concerned about? Not really when you consider that an overwhelming majority of women taking contraceptives do not get blood clots. If the prevalence rate of a disease is low, then a 2, 3, or 4 fold increase may not be important, unless you are among the unfortunate few who get the disease.

This potential pitfall on interpreting relative risks works the other way – in preventing disease.

What if you were told that vaccine A cuts your risk of getting disease X in half? Sounds good, but we must consider the prevalence rate of disease X. If the prevalence rate of disease X is 2 in 10 thousand or 0.02% and you're vaccinated, the risk of getting the disease is cut in half to 1 in 10 thousand or 0.01%. We would need to vaccinate 10,000 people in order to prevent one person from getting disease X.

The upshot is that we need to consider prevalence when evaluating risk. If the prevalence rate of an unfortunate event is 1 in 10 and intervention cuts that risk in half to 5%, the treatment is worth considering. However, if the prevalence rate is 1 in 10000 and intervention cuts that risk in half from 0.01% to 0.005%, the intervention may not be worth considering, especially if it is expensive or comes with risky side effects. When questions about risk and prevalence arise, a cost versus benefit analysis usually determines the best course of action. Interventions that cut the risk of a low prevalence disease in half may be worthwhile if the intervention is cheap and/or the disease fatal or contagious. Similarly, engaging in behavior that increases the risk of a low prevalence disease may be worthwhile if the behavior enriches one’s life, which is why I occasionally drink large, creamy, fat-laden, blueberry milkshakes.